Investors have been urged to reject Barclays’ pay report at its annual showdown with shareholders later this month.

The lender (down 3.25p to 238.6p) sparked outrage by hiking its bonus pool by 10 per cent to £2.38bn despite a 32 per cent fall in profits last year and a £5.8bn emergency rights issue to beef up its finances.

With just over two weeks before its annual general meeting on April 24, shareholder advisory group Pirc turned up the heat.

Showdown: Barclays, led by Antony Jenkins (pictured), sparked outrage by hiking its bonus pool by 10 per cent to £2.38bn

It praised the decision of chief executive Antony Jenkins to waive his bonus for the year and said the bank’s remuneration report has ‘good disclosure’.

But it criticised the decision to increase the bonus pool, ‘given the relatively lower performance of the bank.’

It also raised concerns about the introduction of new ‘role based’ fixed payments to senior staff to dodge the new EU bonus cap, which was introduced in January.

Jenkins, who has claimed he hiked bonuses to avoid a ‘death spiral’ of top investment bankers being poached by rivals, is one of the main beneficiaries. He has been lined up for a £900,000 shares allowance this year on top of his basic salary of £1.1m.

Other banks, including HSBC and Standard Chartered, have introduced similar payments to swerve the restrictions from Brussels.

But in its circular to investors, Pirc said: ‘This has the effect of increasing the fixed portion and therefore mitigating the reduction in bonuses envisaged by the EU.’

Pirc added that investors should also reject Barclays’ appeal for the higher bonus cap allowed under the rules laid down by Brussels.

The cap limits banks to paying no more than one year’s salary as a bonus, rising to twice salary if shareholders approve.

The decision to hand a £1.2m ‘golden hello’ to new finance chief Tushar Morzaria when he joined last August was also criticised by Pirc.

It repeated calls on investors not to re-elect Sir John Sunderland as chair of the remuneration committee.